The Nature of a Failure
by MortalKombatant19
Summary: The story of what happened to Envy after the events of the FMA Movie: Conqueror of Shamballa. Vague Envy/Lust references.
1. Chapter 1

_**Disclaimer: I don't own Fullmetal Alchemist, blah, blah, blah…**_

_**A/N:Alright, here's another serious story. The chapters should be pretty short, but hopefully I'll update quickly. Enjoy!

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I am a failure. Why, you ask? The reason is simple. I never succeeded, and one who never succeeds is unquestionably a failure. In my creation, I was meant to be the son of Van Hohenheim resurrected. I failed at that, and I was never acknowledged by my "father" as his son. He rejected me, spurned me, and abandoned me, my comrades, and our leader.

The second thing I attempted was to help that same leader in her goal of gaining immortality. Granted, in my mind, that is a foolish goal, and I only helped her because it would allow me to kill more humans, something I enjoy immensely. Be that as it may, the point is, I failed at that task as well. My master was devoured by one of my counterparts, Gluttony, after she destroyed his mind in an attempt to make him powerful enough to eat Edward Elric.

The next task, this being one I took upon myself, was to find and kill the man who created me, the man I once called "Father". Van Hohenheim. Arrogant, naive, misguided, and foolish as he may be, he is a hard man to find. I passed through the Gate of Truth into a world called Earth. I began tracking down my father. I found him. But I was captured by an organization called the Thule Society. I was used as a main component in an attempt to open a portal between worlds, so some greedy fool could take over the universe or some such. Not only that, but, to add insult to injury, that bastard Hohenheim tricked me into creating the portal for Edward Elric to travel back to Amestris from Germany.

From the first moments of my existence, I have been a failure. All the way to the last recorded moments of my existence, I have been a failure still. But those moments were not my last. They were, perhaps, my last meaningful moments in the events that shape the fate of worlds, but even so, I lived on. After that, I began my quest to gain something from my life. Not to "correct the errors of my ways", no, none of that for me. But to find meaning in my life, yes. To succeed at something, for the first time.

I am a failed homunculus. I am Envy. This is my story.


	2. Chapter 2

_**A/N: We are now beginning the story in earnest. For those of you who don't know, all the scientific theories and equations in this story are real. With the exception of one, which will be introduced much later on. Just a fun fact.

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"You really should tie your hair back, Mihael."

"Yes, probably."

The man speaking to me was one Otto van Leeuwenhoek, descendant of the microbiologist Antony van Leeuwenhoek. He was teaching me the sciences of microbiology, more specifically, genetics. For some reason he insisted on calling me Mihael, even though I told him my name was Envy. He seemed to think Envy was an unsuitable name for the scientific community, and that, if i wanted people to take me seriously, I would need a more common name. So he named me Mihael Tedesco. This is just one example of this strange man's eccentricities, but for all that, he was brilliant.

The science of this world is different from the Alchemy of Amestris. The closest thing to it is Chemistry, which is essentially the same thing, just much slower and less convenient. However, I had no interest in Alchemy, never have, never will. The brand of science I was most interested in was genetic engineering. Microbiology. I learned that the human body is made up of cells, and that each cell contains DNA in the nucleus. This DNA, bundled together in chromosomes, collectively dictates the appearance, not to mention essentially everything else about a person, including behavior, to a certain extent. I also learned that, with the right technology, one assemble these genes, chromosomes, cells, tissues, organs, and systems into one cohesive unit. A body. More specifically, a human body. It was possible, even in this world lacking Alchemy, to create a human body. The only thing missing is the soul.

Intrigued by this, I became Otto's assistant. He teaches classes at a community college, and uses their funding to fuel his research. On this particular day, I was helping him prepare for a class, and, while bending over a petri dish, accidentally dipped my long hair into it. Not tying back long hair is one of the most foolish mistakes a scientist can make in the lab, but i didn't care.

"One day, we'll be doing a dangerous experiment, and your long hair is going to get in the way, and you'll burst into flames. How would you like that?" he asked.

"I wouldn't like that at all." I responded shortly.

"Then tie back your thrice-cursed hair!" he exclaimed. "No." I said. "You already made me get rid of the green color, your not going to make me cut it as well."

This was true. Otto was obsessed with the regards of the scientific community. Understandable, as they had no regard for him whatsoever. Even so, it was annoying. For example, when he found me, and took me in, he forced me to "remove the dye" from my hair. Of course he had no idea the green color wasn't dye, since there is no naturally green hair here on earth. Not only did he do that, he also forced me to wear "respectable clothing". My hair was now chocolate brown, and I was wearing a black polo, khakis, and a white lab coat. Not at all the traditional image of the homunculus Envy.

"Well if you don't, you'll regret it eventually." he said, continuing our often-repeated debate. "Then I'll regret it eventually, I suppose. This cell culture is ready." I tried to change the subject. "Even after you put your hair in it?" Otto asked. "Yes, I put new agar in a new dish dish, and transported the bacteria into it." I responded. "My God, dear boy, you are natural scientist! You are going to win the Nobel Prize, I swear it!" "Thank you, Professor, but all I did was switch out a petri dish." I said, a little inflated nonetheless. "Yes, but to know what to do instinctively like that, and to do it that fast...and you've only been studying science for such a short time!" he exclaimed. "Thank you again, sir. Should I take these into the classroom?" I asked, gesturing towards the row of petri dishes now ready for examination. "Yes, please do. And thank you again for subbing for me today. I really need this day off for private research." I smirked. "Any time, boss man." and i backed through the door into the classroom, a full tray of cell cultures in my hands.

"Hello class, I'll be the substitute for Professor Leeuwenhoek today." I said, to the murmuring of the class. I guess the class wasn't used to a kid who looked to be about sixteen years old with hair down to his waist teaching college level microbiology. "The professor has you guys doing some pretty basic stuff today, just incubating and observing a bacterial cell culture. We have Streptococci, E. Coli, Klebsiella Pneumoniae, and a whole bunch of others. Each lab group will be given a petri dish, blah blah blah, take care of the cells, don't let them die. Got it?" I said quickly. the class just gazed blankly at me. "Alright, one person from each group come up and get your groups culture."

The students went to their lab benches with their cell cultures, and I sat at the professor's desk, and prepared for a long, boring hour of watching human college kids try to save sickly colonies of cells. The students didn't know they were sickly, but they were. That's just the sort of thing Otto van Leeuwenhoek would do.

Almost immediately, however, one of the students, a blonde haired girl with her hair tied back into a ponytail, like it should be, spoke up.

"Um...sir?"

"Call me Tedesco. What do you want?"

"These cells are dying."

That caught me by surprise. "Of course they are. You're supposed to save them." i said cooly. "Why didn't you tell us they were dying?" asked some brown haired punk kid. "van Leeuwenhoek told me not to tell you. You're supposed to find out on your own."

The other kids were now looking at their cultures, and, led by the blonde haired girl, were beginning to notice flaws in their own cell cultures. Like whole portions of the formations straight up gone. "Hey, she's right!" exclaimed one stupid student. "Half of ours are already dead! How are we supposed to save this culture? This isn't fair!" he whined. "listen, kid, just do it. You're a big boy, you can handle it. And if you can't, you'll probably fail the assignment. So I suggest you figure it out."

That basically demanded the students' respect. I'm no pushover substitute, not me. Assholes.

Eventually, the class ended. None of the cultures had died (yet), and all were healthy enough to last until the next class. For all their whininess, this class was good. As the students filed out of the classroom, i pointed to the blonde who had first realized the cells were diseased.

"You there, stay for a moment." I said. "But I have a class." she protested. "I'll write you a pass. I'm only a sub, but they should accept it." She thought about that. "Okay, it's only Physics anyway." She walked over to the teacher's desk.

"How did you realize the cells were dying so quickly?" I asked, curious.

"Well, the cell formations..." and she launched into a long complicated explanation about how she had realized the cells were dying so quickly.

"I see...that's pretty impressive. What did you say your name was?" i asked.

"I didn't, but it's Mariella."

"Mariella...Romanized Danish?"

"Latin influenced, yes."

" I see. I'll have to commend you to the professor. Good job on this assignment. You kids weren't supposed to find out about the disease for at least ten minutes."

"Thank you, Mr. Tedesco."

I wrote her a pass, and she left the room. At that moment, a plan began to form in my head. Genetic engineering...truly an interesting concept, don't you agree?

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	3. Chapter 3

_**A/N: OK, since I'm on a roll I'm just going to keep on updating. I will get around to my other stories eventually, but right now this one is on my mind, so I'm going to follow this train of thought to the end of the tracks. Enjoy, and please R&R!  


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The day period after that first class of the day was empty for Prof. van Leeuwenhoek, and therefore me as well. I continued to think about the talented blonde from the previous class, Mariella was her name, right? The Latin-Dane. Yes, she was very talented...and most likely very useful as well. If Edward Elric were still in this world (although I had no way of knowing whether he was or was not), He would have undoubtedly tried to warn her about me, thus causing my vaguely formed plan to fail. However, he probably wasn't there, so I had no worries that I might not succeed.

Had Otto still been at the school, I would have gone to him immediately, and told him about this talented girl in his class, and recommended that she be moved to a more difficult class...Genetics, perhaps? I went to the computer and pulled up her record. She was an exemplary student, no speaking out of turn, no violence, no rule-breaking. Beautiful. She graduated at the top of her high school class with a 4.5 GPA. Even more beautiful. And, most beautiful of all, she was majoring in Genetic Engineering, with a minor of molecular electronics. Clearly, this girl was a natural Geneticist, with an interest in the alteration of chromosomes. Perhaps even the creation of a human being?

I spent the rest of that day planning my great exposition to my teacher, the professor. I would have to come in hot, with guns blazing to get him to give me the green light on this. And if I told him my whole plan from the start, he almost definitely wouldn't give me the green light at all. But maybe, just maybe, if I revealed it to him little by little...

_**A/N: Flashback begins now**_

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**When I was in Amestris, I lived with six others. We were each named after one of the Seven Deadly Sins. I was, of course, Envy. My cohorts were Lust, Pride, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, and Gluttony. I was closest to Lust and Gluttony. We were like family. But then Edward Elric and his damned friends came along. They killed almost all of us, including Lust, slain by Roy Mustang. they also indirectly caused the destruction of Gluttony's mind. Wrath disappeared, which I don't really care about. We got along famously at first, but towards the end we hated each other. Pride was also killed by Mustang, Sloth was killed by Edward himself, and Greed was killed by Edward Eric as well. _

_I remember the feeling of despair as I was separated from my companions._

_I remeber the sensation of rage as I realized the Edward and his brother Alphonse would regain what they had lost using the Philosopher's Stone. _

_I remember the jealousy as I learned that Edward had been reunited with his father, and that the two of them had become close. _

_And I will never forgive him._

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_As I sat at Professor van Leewenhoek's computer, I mused about the past...and I realized that I might have found a way to get it all back. Everything that I lost, everything that was taken from me...

I had only to reach out and take it back.

It would take time, of course. All such things do. But what was time to me, Envy? i was practically immortal, so I had no reason to fear death by old age. In fact, the only thing that could possibly kill me was Alchemy, and, seeing as Alchemy died out centuries ago on Earth, I had no reason to fear that either.

I began to ponder how I could go about finding the materials I needed for my plan. They were certainly rare, and very much illegal. then again, the whole plan was probably illegal, so who cares, right? I decided to wait until Otto got back from his research trip. When he did, I would be able to implement the first step of my plan.

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**_A/N: there you have it. Chapter three is up. You can probably figure out what our mutual friend's plan is; I gave a couple clues inn this chapter. Do you think I should have made it less obvious? Let me know, please. I hope you enjoyed this story so far, and I hope you continue to enjoy it. Out._**

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